2014 is coming to a close, and each year I put together a CD of music I’ve worked on throughout the year, to give to family and friends over the holidays. This year is no exception, and I’m releasing it to the public. It contains 18 tracks, 14 of which have come out of the new Facebook Challenge group I formed. The other 4 tracks are pulled from various back-tracks I’d done earlier in the year. There’s even one from back in 2012 or so. All available on a single tangible CD product. All the songs were reworked and mastered so that they create a continual creative flow of ideas.

Last month I launched a new Facebook group called the Reason101 Music & Sound Design Challenge. The idea was to create a place where people could post their music and sound design constructions in a friendly place, then comment and provide constructive criticism on those postings. Often times, we get lazy or hit a rut. And challenges can be helpful to push us further with our development.

This isn’t so much a tutorial about how to use the latest Reason hot new device or how to stretch CV cables into pandemonium. Instead, I thought about how to get all our creative juices flowing and what better way than to create a fun and simple daily challenge for the month of October. There are no prizes, no winners, and no losers. It’s just a fun little game that hopefully triggers some creativity and motivation to make more music and sounds.

The Musician’s manifesto. Or, subtitled: “The Reason Guide to getting Zen and Musical” — these are just some of the things I’ve learned throughout my life and more specifically being a musical-minded person working with Reason for the past 5 years

Kevin Parks (aka: “Liquid Silver,” “Wyatt,” or “Ambient Synthesis”): June 8, 1949 – April 28, 2010. It’s hard for me to find the right words, but I lost a great internet friend recently, and I wanted to pay homage to his memory. He was talented, kind-hearted and was always there to lend a musical hand. He will be missed.

According to Wikipedia, Glitch is a term used to describe a genre of experimental electronic music that emerged in the mid to late 1990s. The origins of the glitch aesthetic can be traced back to Luigi Russolo’s Futurist manifesto The Art of Noises. But what makes good Glitch?